The Adventure, Part I

The first weekend in February, I went on a good, old-fashioned adventure. Oh, sure. I could make the timeworn references to Odysseus and his son, uh, Geoffrey. But that’s not how I am. I’m the simple sort, as plain as a hoe and as unlettered as a yokel. In fact, I enjoy nothing more than to chew on a piece of straw while I sit in wait for a city slicker to happen by. We don’t cotton to no strangers ‘round here.

But I’m getting off the track.

I went for an overnight trip to California. From Georgia. The Firesign Theatre was on tour along the edges of the West Coast and a couple of Internet acquaintances of mine were slated to go to the show in San Rafael. Due to an unexpected upsurge in income, it was decided that I could waste a couple of hundred bucks on the trip out.

First, I had to get a ticket. Fortunately there were still a few left, so I logged on to Ticketmaster. The seat was distant from the stage, but not as distant as Atlanta. I cyber-grabbed it, and proceeded to the next of my challenges.

That turned out to be booking a motel room and reserving a rental car. The motel bragged of offering in-room blow dryers and a view of “the bridge.” “The bridge” turned out to be the Richmond Bridge, not the Golden Gate, and I was able to overlook it entirely throughout my stay. Still, the rate was decent, and the rental car they practically gave me, so no complaints there. I booked them and ventured forth, bold and fearless in a Barney Fife sort of way.

That left only one major hurdle: the flights back and forth. I started looking about three days before I actually had the cash to book anything and was heartened by the low-low prices. The best deal was actually a nonstop on an airline I’ll call Smelta. The world looked pretty cozy right about then, and I allowed myself all the contented sighs I wanted.

That was before the price started going up. The first time, it jumped up by about $80, which matched the jump in my blood pressure on a dollar per point basis. It was still possible, but I started looking to other airlines just in case.

When it jumped another $80 the next day, Smelta was stricken from the list of possibilities, as were any other nonstop flights. Decent prices were disappearing quickly, thanks to a case of the jitters on the oil futures market. Somebody blows up something 10,000 miles away, and I’m taking it on the chin because a bunch of gamblers and speculators are losing their nerve.

When the day that I could purchase finally came, the competition was down to one competitor: We’ll call them North-by-Northwest. The itinerary called for me to fly from Atlanta to Memphis and then on to San Francisco. I had half-an-hour between flights, but that should be fine if everything went well. The theory was sound, but only real life could tell us how good the practice was.

Tomorrow: Part II, “I Run Pretty Good for a Middle-Aged Fat Man.”